Search: crossing lines
08 Aug Libya’s Acceptance of the International Criminal Court’s Jurisdiction: Stakes and Implications
...Libya by the end of 2025. On 15 May 2025, three days after Libya lodged its article 12(3) declaration, he that some lines of inquiry would be completed by the end of the year, with the remaining ones by the end of March 2026. The Prosecutor is independent and retains discretion over whether to initiate investigations. Accordingly, the fact that Libya lodged an article 12(3) declaration with respect to alleged crimes committed until the end of 2027 does not compel the Prosecutor to continue its ongoing investigation or request authorization...09 Feb Mapping the Evolution of States and Empires
The bloggers at Coming Anarchy have put together an informative series of posts about the shifting borders of states and empires. There’s a time-lapse animation of the expansion and contraction of Rome and Byzantium, a series of maps for each of Ethiopia, Poland, Armenia , Persia, and Russia. Also, there’s a series of comparative maps on state borders in modern Europe. Along similar lines (and in light of current events), I would also recommend Catholicgauze’s post on the ethnic geography of Kosovo. Since a picture is worth a thousand words,...
07 Aug Writing in International Law and Cultural Barriers (Part II)
...issues (see, eg, AsianJIL guidelines). We do have, however, some suggestions on how those involved in teaching, writing and publishing can cooperate towards filling in cultural communication gaps. First, we believe that it is important that authors and publishers understand the problem needs to be addressed through a two-way street approach. It should not be for authors to do all the heavy-lifting of having to adapt to different writing styles, nor should this mean that authors should not be concerned with writing and communicating well. Authors should retain agency over...16 Nov The Sovereigntist Premise of Hathaway and Shapiro’s Outcasting
...The “shared understandings” of statehood are morphing so as to shrink the spaces of sovereign insulation. To paraphrase Wendt, sovereignty is what states make of it, and states’ identity as such has come to comprehend a downsized version. There are lots of ways in which international law is degrading sovereignty. I think it’s possible now to imagine the internal enforcement of international law along the lines of the Modern State Conception — not all advocates of international law “tend to let the conversation drop at this point.” (276). The construction...
17 Mar International Law for a Fragile World: Ecological Risk and the Limits of Consent-Based Governance
...even as planetary systems destabilise materially. This dynamic points to a deeper problem. Consent-based governance assumes that states can meaningfully choose the level of risk they are willing to accept. Climate change demonstrates that ecological risk is not divisible along national lines – one state’s lawful development choices may irreversibly undermine another’s physical survival. When rising sea levels threaten the very existence of some states, the notion that all parties are equal risk-bearers becomes both morally and analytically untenable. In this sense, climate change exposes the limits of sovereignty as...
25 May Affective Justice Symposium: International Justice in Africa–Not All That Simple
...longing for the old days would keep people poor: what we were observing was development, progress. Indeed, this was what we were here to bring. Rid the government of its criminal leaders, plug the country into the world economy and teach the Sudanese how to run a country. What was I doing here if I did not believe we could help fix the place? It was all so simple. I do not recall the lines of my response, but they included the colonial encounter (the most symbolic of which, between...17 Apr Jennifer Trahan’s Cambodia Problem
...the possibility of the appointment of a group of experts to evaluate the existing evidence and propose further measures, as a means of bringing about national reconciliation, strengthening democracy and addressing the issue of individual accountability.” The group of experts recommended the UN create an ad hoc tribunal along the lines of the ICTY and ICTR, but Cambodia favoured a more internationalized tribunal based in its own judicial system. Cambodia thus asked the UN to help it draft legislation for such a tribunal. In response, “the Secretary-General entered into negotiations...17 Jul A Primer on the Jadhav Case at the International Court of Justice
...certainly highlighted by the issues brought up here – is the greater engagement with individual rights by the ICJ, which has a state centric focus and is not a human rights court. JudgeCançado Trindade’s concurring opinion to the Provisional Measures Order in this case refers to the ‘humanization’ of international law. Cases such as this highlight the dichotomy and the potential blurring of the lines between a focus of the rights of state versus that of the individual. Finally, the impact of an ICJ decision can have consequences on treaties entered...
18 Jul Symposium on PMSCs: From Contract to Combat – Individual Criminal Liability of PMSC Personnel and Its Integration into Emerging Treaty Frameworks
...roles over lower-ranking soldiers, illustrating the blurred lines of authority and the operational integration of PMSC staff into state-military frameworks (see here and here). In the words of the Bemba decision of the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber, superior responsibility ex article 28(a) may arise when the forces are structured like a conventional army (see para. 456). This convergence of functions and command dynamics has led scholars such as Kuwali (p. 109) and Frulli (pp. 454-466) to argue that PMSCs should be treated, for purposes of accountability, analogously to formal military units....30 Jul Judge Wilkinson and the Ambiguity of the “Conduct that . . . Aims to Harm” Criterion
...is a mens rea requirement. Finally, let me close by raising a question about the requirement of a link to a declaration or AUMF. Consider the post I put up last night discussing the complex array of forces currently engaging in armed attacks on Afghan and Allied forces in the Afghan-Pakistan theater. Some of those forces are within the scope of the 9/18/01 AUMF, but arguably some are not (e.g., Lashkar-e-Taiba). Insofar as we intend for a test along the lines of the Wilkinson criteria to operate in connection with...